December 17, 2012

***UPDATE: 12/18/12 The Jany has removed the offending fox pillow from their website for purchase. It still shows up in background pictures, but it is no longer for sale! No official word from The Jany, and for all I know they could re-list it once things calm down. But thanks to YOU and all of the comments, tweets, e-mails, we made a difference!Our job doesn't end there. Many other artists work is still up on the website. Keep spreading the word! THANK YOU***

I am so sad today. I woke up to an email from Kristin Loffer Theiss from KLT Works, a fellow handmade artist who sells her work on Etsy, informing me that a large Korean company called The Jany has stolen my ever popular handmade Orange Fox Pillow and are blatantly mass producing it. I created this adorable design in August of 2011, and have been selling it online in my Etsy Shop ever since.

The Jany has also taken artwork from other popular artists, such as Seventy Tree, printed them onto clothing, and are mass producing them. Selling them for less than we can afford to sell our original work for. Devaluing our brands, and stealing our designs.

Here's a list of the artists who have had their work stolen by The Jany:

We may be a bunch of small artists and supporters of the handmade community, but together our voices can be heard! Please, share this story with anyone who will listen! The more blogs, online papers, etc. we can get to pick up this story, the more likely we can get these products removed from The Janey.

3. Write A Review On Their Website.

This company is difficult to contact, you can post a review underneath each stolen product and complain about the designs that were stolen!

4. Work Together.

The artists affected by this are trying to work together to take some legal action. I am having a cease and desist letter drafted by a lawyer. We are contacting anyone who can possibly help us fight this case legally.

I think that large companies like The Jany feel like we are small and powerless, so they simply lift a design from an Etsy and pass it off as their own.

But together, we can make a HUGE STINK about how wrong this is!

Every week I hear yet another story about friends and fellow artists who are finding their work stolen off of sites like Society6, Etsy, Big Cartel, etc! The Jany is located overseas is even more difficult to deal with because they do not abide by the same copyright laws that we do in the US. They do supposedly have an office in NYC, so I am hoping this will give us a way in.

You may think (like I did) that there is no way someone would ever copy your work and pass it along as theirs. But it will happen eventually. Especially if we let stores like The Jany get away with this!